


The Changing Wallpaper

by DwaejiTokki



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: "vacation", Gen, Insanity, John has a better room, Sherlock has bad luck, Wallpaper, old house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 19:56:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4974043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwaejiTokki/pseuds/DwaejiTokki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John take a bit of a vacation, but Sherlock slowly finds himself going mad with boredom. “I’ve stayed in much more horrible places before. It’s the wallpaper that I cannot stand.” One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Changing Wallpaper

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by one of my favorite short stories, "The Yellow Wallpaper."

IT is very seldom that John and I do ordinary people things—well, John is quite normal, actually. He does all the shopping and pays the bills for the flat, but I digress.

            We came here to solve a promising murder that turned out to be an open-and-shut case, unfortunately. My facts had been distorted by the insufferable news reporters who wrote on it, thus hindering my good judgment and leaving John and myself utterly trappedin this backwater town during the rainy season.

            Of course I had suggested that we procure a rental of some sort in order to take ourselves home, but John obstinately refused, petulantly stating that he was not going to drive halfway across England with me in tow. Certainly I’m not driving.

            Therefore we are stuck here, lodging in some horrid old house that reminds me too much of my childhood residence. It creaks in the wind, the whole upper floor leaks and molders, and the grimy windows rattle with the thunder. The carpet is garish and worn, and John has tripped more than once already—which was cause for amusement only the first time, and each stumble afterwards was incredibly annoying. Even worse, John has claimed the better of the inhabitable rooms.

            While his is relatively small but comfortable, mine is the larger. The only piece of furniture is a queen-sized bed tucked into the far corner, opposite of the barred window—perhaps to keep the children from climbing out, if my assumption in that this was once a nursery is correct. The floor is hardwood, scuffed up and worn away, indicated heavy traffic and things dragged over the surface over a period of time.

            All of this I can live with—I’ve stayed in much more horrible places before. It’s the wallpaper that I cannot stand.

            It is discolored and peeling, revealing behind it the dried glue and plaster that once adhered it. It stinks of decay and bleach, possibly from some imbecile attempting to remove some of the numerous nicotine stains. The once-white paper had been applied haphazardly, creating ugly patterns and clear lines. In some places, particularly in the lower corners, the paper had been partially peeled away, likely at the hands of a toddler or two.

            Absolutely menacing.

            And no matter what I say John will not trade rooms with me, not even at my pledge to not keep any experiments—chemical, corpse, or otherwise—in the fridge back at Baker Street for two whole weeks, which is the duration of our stay here.

            I have half a mind to sleep on the couch even though it’s infested with mice and roaches and other such vile pests.

            I have nothing to distract myself. My violin and pistol are at Baker Street; there is no Internet connection here so I cannot use John’s laptop; Lestrade is being inherently ridiculous and will not divulge any cases as I am so far away; and Mycroft, of course, refuses to send any government vehicle to retrieve me from this wretched place. My only comfort is my Mind Palace.

            How boring it is here. All it does is rain.

            “Sherlock,” John says, barely managing to avoid a rough patch of the blasted carpet, “I’m going out.” He turns up his jacket collar, though that will be of no use to him. The rain is coming down too fast and hard. There would be no protection from it short of a hazmat suit.

            “Out?” I inquire.

            “Yes, Sherlock, out,” John replies, fixating a stern glance at me. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

            “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

            The minute John is out of the less than fixed-up house, I am on my own feet. Not to do anything that might qualify as _stupid_ , of course, but in an attempt to occupy myself and to alleviate this dreadful boredom. Another tour of the house, I hope, might do this.

            Dreadful living room with no modernity—even the grandfather clock against the far wall, a wind-up, was quite outdated. There are no decorations, but there are tables and drawers and chairs, dutifully dusted by the housecleaner hired by the landowner, but otherwise left to decay. The next room, a kitchen. Very perfunctory but sparsely equipped. The stove appears in working order, but John has not yet made tea. He’s gone out to procure some, I suspect. The kitchen door is boarded shut, but there is a mouse hole at the lower corner, and a growing puddle on the floor from the rain that seeps in there. Better to let John take care of it.

            I back out of the kitchen and make for the stairs that lead up to the landing above. The carpet had once been red, but is now a drab brown and is worn away in places to reveal the creaking wood panels beneath it. The banister is smooth, shining in the dull light from the living room’s chandelier. I proceed upwards.

            From the landing the floor opens up with a hall that leads in both directions. I turn right first, as this side of the house is the side for which John and I have no use. Dark spots indicate the mold and mineral deposits left in the plaster of the ceiling, which are being added to by the relentless rain. Several buckets have been placed strategically, already more than half full from the steady dripping. John will have to empty them when he returns.

            There is a bathroom through the first door, very old fashioned. No one has bothered to renovate it to house more modern facilities, and the tub is a claw-foot with rusty pipes. The sink faucet leaks incessantly. The floor is tiled but stained. It will do.

            In the next room there is nothing but stains, puddles, and mold. There is a rather large hole in the upper corner nearest to the window, from which an inordinate amount of rainwater is coming. The floor sags, and I deem it unsafe to walk upon it.

            Across the hall is the last, and smallest, door. It is a closet, though there is nothing to be found inside but for an empty shelf and a single coat hanger. It looks rather forlorn.

            With nothing else to observe on this side of the landing, I turn and go back. There are two rooms this way: the bedrooms, on opposite sides of the halls. The attic is located above, accessible via a lowering step ladder from the hall ceiling. The string to pull them down is gone.

            I first enter John’s room on the left. This is the better of the two, and looks more kept-after than mine. Likely because it is; this is the master bedroom, while mine appears to have once been a nursery, as I have mentioned before.

            John’s room is neatly furnished: blue satin bedcovers turned down; two mahogany bedside tables on either side, each equipped with a shaded lamp; polished hardwood floor; blue window curtains drawn open; and a writing desk situated against the far wall, also with a lamp; and painted beige walls.

            I half consider taking residence in here, switching out John’s luggage for my own, but I know that I will never hear the end of it and that Lestrade and Molly Hooper would most certainly side with John, should he tell them about it. After all, it was first come, first serve, and John was in the house first. Granted, I was busy following up with our case, being _responsible_.

            But no matter, now.

            I turn and cross the hall to my own temporary room which I positively despise.

            As I have aforementioned, the wallpaper is hideous. And with nothing to occupy myself, it is all I can do to stare at it. I might as well, I suppose, make an exercise of it.

            I prostrate myself on the bed (the mattress is creaky) and steeple my fingers beneath my chin in my “thinking pose,” as John so likes to describe it in his blogs. I shall commit each and every atrocity of the wallpaper to my memory.

            My eyes roam across the walls, documenting each tear and discrepancy. Once this endeavor is completed, I close them and reconstruct the image of the room in my Mind Palace, taking care to tear where it should be torn, to stain certain places with nicotine—to perfectly replicate it in every way.

            I open my eyes once more, intending to have completed the exercise.

            Only to suddenly realize that the place where I had torn one part of my wall is incorrect: on the real wall it is in a different area. Chastising myself for wrongly cataloguing the horrendous wallpaper, I close my eyes and repeat the exercise all over again so that I may ingrain it into my memory. I will only delete the wallpaper later, once John and my “vacation” is over, but it is a matter of keeping my mind sharp that I endeavor to do it right.

            I open my eyes to review my answer.

            The wallpaper is different again.

            I am not frustrated, merely disappointed in my obvious lacking in personal assessment. I should have noticed long before now that my control over my mind is slipping, and thus should have corrected it. It is possible, in light of this situation, that I may have missed something at the previous crime scene. I will have to return to it once I have refined my perceptionary senses.

            I am aware that John has returned from where he has been, has attempted communication, but I am simply too immersed into my dilemma: the wallpaper is changing. It is not me, but the wallpaper which is eluding the catalogued archives of my Mind Palace. Now I am frustrated, I must admit.

            But it is hardly _my_ fault, when the wallpaper is moving about so as to confound me! Well, I won’t have it.

            “The rain’s finally stopped,” John needlessly announces as he enters my room. “Sherlock, didn’t you hear me calling you? You want some tea? Biscuits?”

            I do not acknowledge him; I am too busy.

            “Sherlock.”

            “Mm.”

            “Tea?”

            “No.”

            John lingers for another moment, but I do not spare him a glance. I have only eyes for the blasted wallpaper. He leaves without bothering me further.

            And then comes a revelation.

            Indeed, the wallpaper is changing, but after John had distracted me I had become even more befuddled. John is in cahoots with the wallpaper! It is the last straw.

            Now I am angry.

            I leap up from the bed and cross to the nearest torn section, one which had constantly switched. I dug my nails deeply into the wall, tearing loose the brittle paper and the weakened glue which adhered it to the wall. It came apart all too easily, with a rather loud sound. A rather _pleasing_ sound.

            I continue to take down the wall, crumbling and dusty paper coating my hands. My teeth are bared in an ugly grimace, I’m sure, but really I can’t help it. John hurried footsteps approach, and he appears once more at the door, looking alarmed.

            “ _Sherlock_!” he exclaims as he perceives the destruction. “What in the—“

            “You!” I snarl, whirling on him.

            “Me?” he utters, shocked.

            “It’s your fault, John! I might have known!” I face the wall again, partly decimated now. “You and this damned wallpaper are working together now, isn’t it? You’re changing it! Moving it! Rearranging it all just when I have it right!”

            “Right,” John says faintly, brow creased in ( _mock!_ ) concern. “Sorry.” He backs out of the room and closes the door.

            I return to my task of tearing apart the hideous, confounded, malicious wallpaper.

            It is a moment later that I suddenly realize how ridiculous I am being, how mad it all seems. I still and brush off my hands, releasing a plume of white dust from them that transferred onto my clothes. I sigh in aggravation.

            There is a tentative knock on the door, obviously a worried John.

            I open the door, straightening my scarf and brushing off the dust on my coat in a futile effort to look more calm and presentable. John looks concerned, and is tucking his cellphone back into his pocket as though he’d gotten it out to call for help.

            “All is well, John,” I say to him.

            “Right,” John replies, though he does not look at all convinced. “Well, I’ve just texted Mycroft…He’s going to send for us.”

            “I see,” I say, secretly pleased that I will be escaping from this hell sooner rather than later. “Good.” I push past him to descend the stairs to the kitchen. “What’s for tea?”

John is positively flabbergasted, much to my amusement.

 

END.


End file.
